Weekly Food For Thought – Overrun by Obstacles or Amazed at the Labyrinth?

Saturday, February 02, 2013

‘Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone; for the heroes of all time have one before us, the labyrinth is fully known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path…where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence.’ ~ Joseph Campbell

Dear Friends,

Has it ever happened to you that you start doing something, start making a headway, and bang… You stop. An obstacle of some sort appears …?!

This obstacle usually presents itself out of nowhere, as, let’s be honest here, when you set out on your journey of accomplishing that what you want to accomplish, you didn’t plan on having a pain in the backside, aka an obstacle…

Turning obstacles into mazes

A while ago, I mused about the importance on turning labyrinths or mazes, in which we move round in never ending circles, into friendly obstacles … Sometimes this also works! Yet, I got to experience, first hand, how turning obstacles into labyrinths can be very beneficial and can exponentially contribute to the way you view the world, and ultimately to your growth!

You see, when presented with an obstacle, a large number of people on this planet would see it as a problem. And when we see something as problem, we tend to turn back and run away from it, jump the obstacle against all odds, or going around the obstacle, hoping to avoid it…

In my experience, none of the above options work, purely because they serve as a means to ‘overcome something’ quick…And we know that when we do something very quickly, unless it’s a running race, it is short lived, and there isn’t a great deal of learning to be gained nor growth to be accomplished. So we end up going back to square one, i.e. to a place just before the obstacle presented itself.

Labyrinths, on the other hand, are a different story altogether. Labyrinths are fun. They are what children run through for the sheer joy of it. And they always have a way out – if nothing else the way in is a way to get out.

Significance of perspective

One thing which changes when you start considering something as a labyrinth is that if you take the perceptual position of an eagle or hawk, flying far above it, soaring in the wind, using the fantastic abilities of your hawkish eyes to see the situation from the outside, you can much easier see a way out of it or a way forward. And give superior instructions to the ones who are stuck inside it.

With this in mind may we invite you to consider what you liken different situations in your life with, and explore what happens when you start thinking of them in other terms.

If you think of the boardroom meeting as a battle, note what happens if you start thinking of it as a board game or even as a dance. If you think of the negotiations as a game of poker, notice what happens if you think of them as a game of chess, or even as hopscotch.

Everything unexpected that appears on our journey has a potential to be an obstacle, or a potential to be a labyrinth…How we see it, depends on whether we want to have a quick jump and have an illusion of moving forward, or whether we want to explore and see what we are capable of and what resources we have at our disposal. Some of which are only visible when you rise above your challenges and take a hawk eye view.

Thomas Björge – ITA NLP (International Trainers Academy of NLP) Accredited New Code and Classic Code NLP Trainer and Master Coach and Designer of New Code Game ‘Arrows’, to be featured in Dr. John Grinder’s upcoming book.

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